Overwhelmed, as so often, by the bewildering number of possible crimes, atrocities and other topics I could possibly write about today, I’ve resorted to avoiding the issue by taking a tour of the ads that pop up on one of the news sites I often visit.

And I must say it’s been quite a trip: through a range of offers ranging from the totally irrelevant to the virtually irresistible.

I only ever suffer what sounds like tinnitus on hot summer days in Sydney, but thank goodness the buzzing is caused by cicadas, not some hang-up with my hearing.

As for my vision, it may not be 20/20, but thanks to my shiny new lens implants and a pair of reading glasses when I’ve found them after having forgotten where I last took them off, I can see as well as I could possibly want.

And at least so far, thank goodness, I am mercifully free of the dreaded nail fungus.

By no means as irrelevant and thus easy to ignore as these previous three headlines, however, were ‘DIY Remedies to Tighten Sagging Skin’ and ‘This Amazing Tip Smooths Wrinkles in Minutes’.

But I’ve long ago written my wrinkles off as ‘character lines’, and accepted that sagginess is the least of my worries concerning my skin, compared with how sun-damaged and thus prone to cancerous growths it is.

If I’ve pretty well given up hope of any improvement in my epidermal situation, however, I can always dream of economic advancement.

So for a moment I found myself quite excited by ‘Casula Multi-Millionaire Reveals Success In This Short Video’.

But only for a moment. Because, no offence to the no doubt many fine people living in the Sydney suburb of Casula, last time I had to drive through there it seemed to me far from the kind of place any multi-millionaire would willingly choose to reside or, having struck it tremendously rich, remain.

In other words, while I found the ‘multi-Millionaire’ concept highly relevant, indeed compelling, the mention of Casula robbed the message of most if not all its credibility.

Which brings me to the ad that struck me as most relevant and credible of all that I happened to see: ‘Chinese girls seeking older men’.

This made perfectly good sense to me. I may admittedly

be a bit, in fact a lot, wrinkled of visage and saggy of skin, but presumably these Chinese girls must be smart enough to be aware that these conditions are part of package they are allegedly seeking.

In any event, as I told myself, they would surely be impressed by my freedom from nail fungus.

And any that were less nail-bitingly beautiful that those fetchingly pictured in the ad would likely appreciate that, lacking totally perfect 20/20 vision as I do, I might very well not notice the difference.

But I very soon realised that I was totally lacking in the single appeal that each and every one of these lovely girls would be seeking in an older man: money.

I am not, and must try and console myself that I never will be, an older man with money, let alone a multi-millionaire, be it from Casula or any other location.

And in any case, as I was reminded by the last of the headlines I saw in my trawl through this group of ads, ‘The World’s Most Expensive Divorce Settlements’, I already have a Chinese girl.

Or, more precisely, a half-Chinese wife who is so much my junior that she almost qualifies as a girl by comparison. But you get the point.

Which is that, in light of the risk of possible misunderstandings, let alone divorce, I feel obliged to deprive other Chinese girls of at least one of the older men that they may be seeking, namely myself, and get back to contemplating which of the countless alternative contemporary topics is most worth writing about.